Music: 'Gumbo, Grits and Gravy' is a stew of musical styles

Wednesday

Jan 9, 2019 at 4:39 PM

Blues is a jumping off point for Guy Davis. He uses it as a basis to explore a variety of sounds and styles. Over his lengthy career, Davis has played all the usual blues venues and festivals, but also rock clubs and coffeehouses, and even on the dramatic stage where he's both starred in and been the driving force behind several successful shows.

So it comes as no surprise that Davis is right in the middle of an intriguing new project that blends several American music genres and cultural touchstones. Tonight the Fallout Shelter in Norwood hosts the debut of "Gumbo, Grits and Gravy," a three-person musical experiment that brings Davis together with Anne Harris, a violinist whose acclaimed instrumental work traverses all sorts of Americana, from funk to Celtic origins, and Marcella Rene Simien, the daughter of Louisiana zydeco giant Terrence Simien and a much-lauded squeezebox player herself.

The three principals were gathering in Norwood this week for three days of rehearsals prior to Friday night's debut, which will be filmed by the Fallout Shelter crew. Saturday night they have another small show, at The Barn in Egremont, which will also be filmed for documentary purposes. Finally after the weekend of working with the trio, Davis himself will be headlining at the Woods Hole Community Center, as part of that venue's final season.

The whole idea for "Gumbo, Grits and Gravy" came to Davis and his manager Tom Wolke while they were on a blues cruise, and noted how exciting Marcella Simien's set was.

"Guy has always been about expanding his musical reach," said Wolke, who arrived in New Hampshire Tuesday, ahead of the show. "We were doing that blues cruise with Marcella, and then we had heard how amazing Anne Harris was, and the idea took shape. This is going to be our birthing place in Norwood, and we are all nervous – none of us are sure what we're going to get. We have three outstanding solo artists here, but what develops out of this joint project we don't know yet. Probably the easiest thing to compare it to would be the Carolina Chocolate Drops, which began with three basically unknown artists and then grew organically into something pretty spectacular, and now has resulted in all three of them having very successful solo careers. We all hope this project can come close to their success. The Fallout Shelter is a great venue, and this will be a unique musical experience."

Bill Hurley of the Fallout Shelter was eager to host the first show, and the three days of rehearsals, when he heard about this new project.

"Gumbo, Grits and Gravy' is kind of designed as a festival project," Hurley said. "Of course we know well how superb Guy Davis is, and he's played here probably three times. Marcella Rene Simien is a 10th generation Louisiana musician, which says it all about her. And Anne Harris has played violin with (bluesman) Otis Taylor, but she's also played in many other styles and can make her violin sound like Jimi Hendrix, among other things. Friday night will be the first time these three have ever played together, and they chose our spot because they liked it and the ability we have to film the entire three-day process. We're honored and very excited to have them."

We caught up with Davis as he was preparing to drive up from his New York City home Tuesday afternoon, and he agreed that none of the musicians really knew quite what to expect. Davis is the son of the late actors Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, and his extensive career includes starring roles in the 1991 play "Mulebone," which celebrated the music of Taj Mahal, the 1993 production of "Robert Johnson: Trick the Devil," and his own dramatic offering, 1994's fictional one-man play "In Bed With The Blues – The Adventures of Fishy Waters." Davis has a long list of excellent albums to his credit, where his stellar guitar and banjo work is set against his deep and soulful vocals, and his most recent, and 17th overall, is 2015's "Kokomo Kid."

"We had been looking to do some outreach, to branch out into more Americana styles," Davis explained. "Tom made this a workable concept, and we borrowed the name from someone else's project, from a few years back. It seemed like a natural for us, the rock, the gumbo sounds, the blues, all the things Anne does. But we are really creating it as we come together (Wednesday). I do have to really thank Bill Hurley for hooking us up as a gig and a media event. I first met Anne in a hotel room at a gig, and I'm also connected to Marcella, mainly because I'm a big fan of her daddy."

"The blues has always been just a very convenient label for me," Davis noted. "I'm writing songs in so many styles, blues, folk, soul, topical songs. I'm so full of songs I'm about to burst at any time. But I saw this new project as a good platform for some of my songs, and for some new tunes we'll be creating together this week."

Conversations with Carolina Chocolate Drops founding member Dom Flemons, now off on his own successful solo career, helped solidify this new concept.

"The Carolina Chocolate Drops, from their beginnings when Dom, Rhiannon Giddens and Justin Robinson (later replaced by Hubby Jenkins) got together and went out with their eyes wide open, to try reviving and revitalizing early music, were definitely an inspiration," said Davis. "They made it work, and kind of helped turn a page in our music community and cultural history. And they were so good; I can remember when they were much less widely known, meeting Taj Mahal somewhere and he was telling me I HAD to hear this new group."

"We're looking to do sort of the same thing as the Carolina Chocolate Drops – playing some old styles but in a new way, finding a new way to rub against people's ears," Davis said. "It's like recombinant DNA, not just music from one time or one style, but new music combining styles. We're all excited to do this, and just really glad to have an audience while we work it out."

"The concentrated rehearsals will be the first time we've all been together," Davis added. "I've had some time to mess around with Anne, and Marcella I've just heard, but my eyes and ears were open immediately. I am so ready to play music with these two and see what we can create together."

The video work offered at The Fallout Shelter is a nice, and useful side product of the gig.

"Some of the video stuff will be good for PR for us as we go forward," Davis said. "We're all confident in the elements of the ensemble, but having the video record will help us analyze what we're doing and learn how best we can keep it going. I think it will also add a cool element – when Anne starts dancing around while playing her violin, you just see people in the audience staring, dumbfounded at how she can do that."

Wolke is also aiming to incorporate an actual food aspect of the project, where the three artists bring their own recipes – Simien's gumbo, Harris' grits, and Davis' gravy – and perhaps local caterers offer it at future shows.

"As long as they don't make me, personally, cook, I'm all for that," Davis said, laughing. "My focus is 100 percent on the music. But I will be bringing the recipe for my grandma's dumpling gravy, and I think that whole idea of bringing the food part of the culture into it is very appealing."

Davis is planning his next solo album already, and may in fact perform some of the new songs at his solo Sunday show at Woods Hole.

"I've got a secret stash of new songs, and folks at Woods Hole could hear some of them," he said. "As always my music is going in ever-widening directions, and a project like 'Gumbo Grits and Gravy' may not be utterly new styles, but it is three artists coming together for the first time, and trying to catch the creative flow."